Producers encourage quick action on heat rule

Farmers, labor groups differ on trigger temperatures

By WES SANDER
Capital Press

California farm groups say they hope the state's proposed heat-illness standard can be enacted as quickly as possible.

The Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board held a special meeting on Monday, Nov. 16, to bolster public input. The rules outline when shade and other accommodations must be offered to guard farmworkers from heat illness.

The board twice declined to approve emergency amendments earlier this year. Some members said they prefered the normal rule-making process, which allows for more public input.

The emergency rules were proposed by the Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) earlier this year, after the department cited a number of heat-rule violations and said it had found too many fieldworkers unaware of the rules.

Now the board is considering the same changes, with some alterations made during the spring and summer, through the longer process.

"We still feel that it's important to try to get these regulations implemented in time for next year," said Barry Bedwell, president of the California Grape and Tree Fruit League.

The Department of Industrial Relations says there's a good chance the board will adopt the new regulations by late this year or early 2010, because much of the public process was completed during the emergency process.

Labor advocates say the proposal's trigger for requiring shade structures at 85 degrees should be lowered to 75 degrees. Research has shown that 75 in the sun can be as hot as 90 in the shade, said Anne Katten, a worker-safety specialist with the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation.

For similar reasons, the proposal's high-temperature trigger of 95 degrees should be lowered to 85, labor advocates say.

"We're still saying (the shade trigger) needs to be at 85, because that's where most of the issue begins," said Manuel Cunha, president of the Nisei Farmers League.

Farm groups also say the training campaigns they organized in the past two years have shown results. No heat-related fatalities occurred in California this year, and state inspectors have found a high level of awareness of the rules among workers, Cunha said.

With all that training, changing numbers without apparent need would only cause confusion, Bedwell said.

"Training has been the key," he said. "That's why it's so important that we don't jump around with these numbers.